


One Of These Days (I'm Going To Cut You Into Little Pieces)

by JaeNunyah



Category: Pink Floyd
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 11:17:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21252518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaeNunyah/pseuds/JaeNunyah
Summary: Grisly, gruesome and gory (but still within realm of realism). Happy Halloween.





	One Of These Days (I'm Going To Cut You Into Little Pieces)

"He's not human." Rick fretfully wrings his hands, hushed hiss and accusing glare directed at Nick. "How much did you give Him?"

"All of it." Nick whispers, cocking an ear for sound of stir amidst music wafting up basement stairs, well aware how stealthily Roger can creep and how keenly He hears. No noise reaches his own ears save notes of The Who's "Guitar and Pen". He had placed WHO ARE YOU onto the turntable himself, watched Roger flip it to side B after swallowing several spiked swigs and now prays baleful bane cannot discern their words over those composed by Townshend. "Enough for ten men...or a fucking elephant."

"Then why isn't He fucking DEAD?" Dave derisively demands "Are you sure He's actually drinking?"

They all know Roger sometimes only pretends to imbibe, infinitesimally nursing the same libation for hours while watching everybody else indulge. 

"He is." confirms Nick "He's almost downed half the bottle." He'd carefully injected powerful poison through the cork of Roger's favorite wine with the finest-gauge syringe, resigning himself to damnable designation as assassin, accepting conspiratorial consensus. "Maybe this is a sign we're doing the wrong thing, here, lads." he attempts weakly "I mean, if He doesn't die WE don't go to Hell."

"Saving ourselves from Hell is WHY we're doing this." Dave growls "You AGREED, Nick. You KNOW we can't just sack Him, He's got too much power, and He's gone mad with it."

"He's got pride, too." Nick feebly counters "If we just TOLD Him to leave, don'cha think He would?"

"Oh, He'd go, all right." Rick bites bitterly "But He'd take everything, and could find...other...ways to ruin us for the rest of our lives. We'd never be free of Him." Eyeing Nick mistrustfully, he accuses "Maybe that's what YOU want. Maybe you didn't even really dose the wine and you're working with Him. Planning to turn us in...or turn on us, are you?"

"Stop it, Richard." Dave softly scolds "If we fight amongst ourselves, He wins. We made a pact, remember? Nick knows this is the only way..." he turns blazing blue gaze to quietly inquire "...right?"

Nick is no longer sure. "We tried. If it isn't working, maybe we should just let Him go."

"No." Dave reaches into his pocket and withdraws formidable folding knife, flicking open gleaming blade. "If it isn't working, that's proof He really IS some kind of monster, far more toxic than whatever stuff you gave him."

"He's not evil, you guys, just scary-smart and super-spiteful. Sure, he could hurt us, but...He wouldn't kill us."

"He's dangerous, and if we let Him leave...let Him LIVE...He could poison the whole world." insists Rick, exhibiting wicked weapon of his own, smaller than Dave's but double-edged, a dagger-like stiletto. "We SAID it might come to this." he reminds Nick "YOU gave him the wine, you're already a murderer. Now we all have to go down there and finish the job together. Let's see yours."

Nick reluctantly removes sheathed hunting knife from his jacket, reaching once more for redemptive reprieve as he tugs away leather scabbard to show steel sharp on one side and serrated on the other. "I don't know if I CAN..."

"You HAVE to." Dave declares "You promised. We swore, Nick. It ends today. If we don't stop Him now, we might never have another chance. He's getting stronger all the time, and you know it. Poison doesn't kill Him already, how long until knives won't work, either?"

"That's crazy, Dave."

"HE's crazy, but it's the kind of madness others take to heart as inspired genius. He can MAKE people do...things. You've seen that insanely unholy influence yourself, don't act like you haven't. Maybe He wouldn't kill us, but what if He tells some other lunatic to do it?" Rick presses, panicked. "What if He convinces one of US to hurt somebody...each other, even?"

"I've felt Him trying." admits Dave "I can still tune Him out, but if He grows more powerful, well..." he sighs "There's a name for the magic, malevolent manipulation He does...sounds like an opera singer...or a pasta shape..."

Scornfully snapped "Svengali." startles schemers. "What a nasty pack of silly, superstitious sods you are." Roger has managed to mount the stairs and now critically condemns cabalistic comrades. Preoccupied plotting and percussive pounding of Keith Moon's drum track had combined to cover arduous ascent. He's wracked with agony and seeing triple, perceiving eighteen eyes and nine knives, a line of juvenile doggerel haunting hurting, heavy head which sheer strength of will holds upright.

["Three-six-nine, the goose drank wine..."]

"I KNEW you were oblivious idiots...seems you'd be cold-blooded killers, too." He considers central of triplet Nicks must be the real one, and forces focus. "Didn't expect it of YOU. Guess I'm the goose, all right, and you've cooked me good and proper." Roger desperately deems he may be dying, but perhaps persuasive power they so fear can purchase passage permitting him to do so elsewhere...away from subjugating sight. "Get out of my way NOW, and we need never speak of this again."

Dave is the first to recover from stunned shock as he charges with outstretched steel, aiming for a heart he isn't sure exists. Within two beats of his own, Rick approaches, assisting assault, both burying blades between Roger's ribs.

Struggling silently, Roger neither speaks nor screams as he wrenches Rick's knife first from fisted fingers then out of his flesh, swiftly sweeping to reverse bloodied blade upon attackers, slicing out at hands which have never touched him kindly and are now trying to kill him cruelly.

"Nick, help us!" Dave howls, horrified at the prospect that Roger might deal deadly damage with wrested weapon.

"Help ME." Roger pleads, vision occluded and voice clouded with pain and fear, imploringly appealing to the only man in the room who ever has.

Nick remains uncertain who he's rushing to obey until he finds himself sobbing "I'm sorry." as his knife plunges into Roger's narrow chest. 

"I know." Roger gasps fitting final phrase before Rick's dagger drops from twitching fingers to clatter onto the floor. Eyes rolling back and knees giving out, he sways then collapses beneath bandmates' brutal betrayal as all three fall upon him. Blades continue to slash and stab, casting spatter from upswings and flinging drips in descents, taking no chances even after Dave has cut his throat into savage semblance of scarlet smile.

When fatal frenzy finally abates, Nick, Rick and Dave regard one another over the motionless, mangled mess of their formerly fearless foreman.

"It's really over." Rick murmurs "We're free."

Nick hoarsely rasps "Now what?"

"Remember the plan." Dave sounds decisive although he looks green around the gills. "We're going to torch the place. Come on." He stands up, watching fellows follow suit, gratified they seem to be accepting his leadership. "I need a smoke before we fetch kerosene cans from the shed."

Night is falling and so are fat flakes of snow as they triptrap together out onto the lawn of isolated lakeside farmhouse. In this dead-of-winter off season, the lights behind them are the sole incandescence visible for miles around, gleaming glittering gold across softly blanketed expanse into which their shoes crunch and sink. Only Nick is wearing a coat. Dave still steams with exertion and adrenaline but Rick begins to shiver as he strikes flame to first Dave's cigarette, then Nick's, and lastly his own.

"Three-on-a-match is bad luck, Rick." Nick informs, inhaling icy air infused with carcinogenic cloud.

"It's not a match, it's a Zippo." Rick quibbles, snapping shut lighter's lid.

"Our bad luck is behind us, now." Dave promises, and the trio smokes in silence, each looking forward in his own way until a sudden crash and thump makes them all identically turn backward. They had exited a side door, and startling sound issues from the front porch. 

Nick wants to flee and Rick fears he might faint, but both remain rooted as Dave dashes briefly inside, returning ashen and aghast.

"He's gone!"

Surprising everyone, himself most of all, Rick leaps into action first, crying "We can't let Him get away!" as he runs around the corner. Only out of sight for scant seconds, sharp report of small-caliber pistol spurs Dave and Nick to pursue into view. They espy Rick in shooter's stance, aiming snub-nosed .22 revolver at staggering shape starkly outlined against the snowfall. He fires again, and figure flinches but does not fall.

"I hit Him..." Rick swears grimly "...in the HEAD. What IS he?"

Roger had never thought he'd be grateful Dave is a lazy dumbass more concerned with appearances than results, but knows that is why the slash across his neck seeps instead of spurts. He feels painful ping strike skull, ricocheting rather than embedding. [What are they shooting me with, a Daisy?] Pellet pierces skin of shoulder and he can't help but laugh, although he's aware it may be his last. [Stupid, cowardly pups. If they HAD a fucking gun, why didn't they just use THAT first? Poison is a weakling's weapon...figures...This whole thing must've been Rick's insidious idea, not Dirty Dave's dastardly design, after all. What possible promise or portent persuaded?]

He hears them following and discerns the surface beneath his soles is no longer snowy scurf but frozen lake. Roger does not know this immediate area, cursing his complacent idiocy in allowing himself to be lured onto unfamiliar turf, but DOES know it's been an especially extended spell of exceptional cold and hopes the ice will hold. [I'm the lightest of us all...in body. Positively poetic justice if I should escape while bumbling would-be assassins crash through The Thin Ice because they have to do everything in a piddling pack.] The ice begins to creak and groan. Roger presses his luck, lurching a few more steps until he not only hears but clearly feels radiating cracklesnap under his heels and knows he can run no further. [All right, then. They WON'T shoot me in the back again. If this is my end, I'll meet it head-on. Let them come.] He turns to face his pursuers and prepares himself for death.

Nick had thought Rick-n-Dave's assessment of Roger as supernatural sorcerer or mythic monster so much mutual delusion, but now wholeheartedly believes, and is terror-stricken to behold bloodied, battered bastard beatifically beholding bandmates. [He may have been a devil before, but betrayal has made Him an avenging angel, and He's about to strike us all down.]

"Shoot Him, Rick!" Dave urges as one foot shatters surface beneath it and entire leg plunges into icy water up to mid-thigh as other knee buckles onto fragile floe beside it, sending him sprawling across snowy strew.

Rick tries to obey, but reflexively jerks trigger too tightly and the shot flies wild. Squaring into stable stance, he aims carefully for the middle of that mocking face, which suddenly drops out of sight.

Engulfed in frigid flood, Roger takes a single deep breath before benumbing waters close over his head. He begins to swim toward shoreline, reassured to find the lake's bottom not far below and astonished the cold seems somehow to be bracing rather than inhibiting, dissipating soporific effect of horrid poison and confirming no major organs have been cripplingly compromised. [All those years I mourned their cluelessness, but now I'm so lucky they can't do ANYthing effectively on their own.]

"YES!" Dave exclaims, extricating himself from frozen fall. "You got Him!"

"I didn't." Rick woefully acknowledges. "He fell through."

That's good enough for Dave. "Whatever. He's gone." Sliding backward on his bottom until assured he's back on firm footing, he slowly and carefully stands. "We won, and now we only have to clean the place instead of burning it."

"noNoNO..." Rick babbles "He's NOT gone. Now he could be ANYWHERE. We'll never find Him, but He can find us anytime. We wanted to be free, but now He'll be RIGHT to hurt us...to kill us...to pick us off one by one. He was so vengeful when we DIDN'T deserve it, but now we DO, and He'll come for us...He WILL...we can neverNeverNEVER sleep again."

Dave slaps Rick sharply across the face, silencing hysterical rant before taking him by both hands and insisting. "He's dead, Richard, and when the body washes up WE KNOW NOTHING, okay? There was a fight, and we kicked him out of the band. He stormed out and whatever happened to Him after that is NOTHING to do with us." He turns to regard Nick, adding "That's our story, and we're STICKING TO IT, right?"

Nick nods, able to utter no word but echo of "Right.", imagining maxim 'Hope for the best but expect the worst.', trying to agree with Dave but fearing Rick has the right of it, knowing HE sure won't sleep soundly until...if...there's a confirmed corpse, and maybe not even then. He might be haunted forever by Roger's last words even after proof of death, and knows his actions have brought that upon himself.

Roger gathers his strangely renewed strength and punches up through The Thin Ice, gaspingly inflating depleted but mercifully not deflated lungs. [HOW did they stab me so many times and not shred something vital?] He has no idea where he is, but sees he's swum far enough away from only inhabited cabin that lights are a distant glimmer and that his emergence goes unnoticed. He can't see them, so they certainly can't see him. Once he rests, recuperates and reconnoiters, he'll see them again, and he'll be the LAST thing they ever see. They'll never see him coming, and he'll be sure to make the punishment fit the crime.

**Author's Note:**

> "Major Character Death" forewarned hasn't happened yet, but certainly shall in future chapters. Bloody bumblers won't get away with this...


End file.
